Profile: Earl Brian

Earl Brian was a participant or observer in the following events:

A company called SCT attempts to purchase Inslaw, which designed the PROMIS database and search application. SCT is assisted by the New York investment bank Allen & Co., which helps with the finance for the proposed deal. The attempt fails, but, according to Inslaw’s founder William Hamilton, in the process a number of Inslaw’s customers are warned by SCT that Inslaw will soon go bankrupt and will not survive reorganization. Wired magazine will say that Allen & Co. has “close business ties” to Earl Brian, a businessman who is said to be interested in PROMIS software and who is well-connected inside the Ronald Reagan administration. [Wired News, 3/1993]

Charles Hayes, a surplus computer dealer, claims he has purchased computers with PROMIS software installed on them from the US Attorneys’ Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Hayes, who the House Judiciary Committee will say has “alleged ties to both United States and foreign intelligence communities,” says that the Harris-Lanier word processing equipment he purchased came with 5 1/4-inch computer disks and he believes these disks contain the enhanced version of the PROMIS software. When the committee investigates, the Justice Department refuses to provide some computer equipment related to these allegations (see February 12, 1991), but the disks turn out not to contain the software (see February 13, 1991). (However, the computer equipment Hayes purchased does contain sensitive information that should not have been disclosed, including grand jury material and information regarding confidential informants.) Hayes will also make a number of other allegations about PROMIS. According to an October 1990 memo drafted by William Hamilton, owner of the company that developed PROMIS, Hayes told him he can identify 300 locations where the software has been installed illegally by the government. In addition, a businessman named Earl Brian allegedly sold the software to the CIA in 1983 for implementation on computers purchased from Floating Point Systems and what the CIA called PROMIS Datapoint. Brian has supposedly sold about $20 million of PROMIS licenses to the government. Hayes will later make the same claims in person to the committee on numerous occasions, adding that he has received information from unnamed sources within the Canadian government saying that Brian sold the PROMIS software to the Canadian government in 1987. The committee will say that he makes “numerous promises” that confirming documentation will be provided by unnamed Canadian officials. However, on August 16, 1991, Hayes will say the Canadian officials have decided not to cooperate with the committee. In its final report, the committee will call the allegations “intriguing,” but point out that Hayes “has not provided any corroborating documentation.” [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

Juval Aviv, an Israeli businessman resident in the US, makes allegations to the House Judiciary Committee about the distribution of PROMIS software. Aviv, who claims to be a former member of Mossad, says he can provide information that a businessman named Earl Brian sold the enhanced version of the PROMIS software to US government agencies outside the Justice Department, including the CIA, NSA, NASA, and the National Security Council. Aviv also claims Brian sold the software to Interpol in France, the Israeli Air Force, and the Egyptian government, the latter through the foreign military assistance program. He also says the software was converted for use by both the United States and British Navy nuclear submarine intelligence data base. Aviv says there are witnesses and documents to corroborate his allegations, but refuses to repeat these claims under oath or provide any further information. These charges will be mentioned in the committee’s final report on the Inslaw affair, but the committee will not endorse them. [US Congress, 9/10/1992] Aviv previously collaborated on the book Vengeance, which purports to describe Mossad’s assassination campaign after a terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The book will later be made into a film, Munich, by Steven Spielberg. However, intelligence writers Yossi Melman and Steven Hartov will call the book a “Walter Mitty fabrication,” adding: “[O]ur investigations show that Aviv never served in Mossad, or any Israeli intelligence organisation. He had failed basic training as an Israeli Defence Force commando, and his nearest approximation to spy work was as a lowly gate guard for the airline El Al in New York in the early ‘70s.” [Guardian, 1/17/2006]

Lois Battistoni, a former employee of the Justice Department’s criminal division, says that the PROMIS application may have been transferred from the department to a private business. She makes the claim in a sworn statement for the House Judiciary Committee in October 1991, and again in an interview in February of the next year. According to Battistoni, a criminal division employee had previously told her that there was a company chosen to take over PROMIS implementation contracts served by Inslaw at that time. This company was apparently connected to a top department official through a California relationship. Inslaw owner William Hamilton will speculate that this company is Hadron, Inc., as it was owned by businessman Earl Brian, who was linked to former Attorney General Edwin Meese. However, Battistoni says that she has little firsthand knowledge of the facts surrounding these allegations, and does not provide the committee with the name of the criminal division employee who made the claim to her, indicating department employees are afraid to cooperate with Congress for fear of reprisal. She also makes a number of allegations about the involvement of department employees in the destruction of documents related to the affair. [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

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